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Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
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video

Engineering

A close-up look at electronic paper reveals its exquisite patterns – and limitations

9 minutes

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Biology

The cell is not a factory

Scientific narratives project social hierarchies onto nature. That’s why we need better metaphors to describe cellular life

Charudatta Navare

Bees push coloured tabs to access a sugary reward
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Cognition and intelligence

What’s this buzz about bees having culture? Inside a groundbreaking experiment

8 minutes

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Earth science and climate

The only man permitted in Bhutan’s sacred mountains chronicles humanity’s impact

22 minutes

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Cosmology

The Indian astronomer whose innovative work on black holes was mocked at Cambridge

13 minutes

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Anthropology

Societies of perpetual movement

Why do hunter-gatherers refuse to be sedentary? New answers are emerging from the depths of the Congolese rainforest

Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias

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Neuroscience

Rethinking the homunculus

When we discovered that the brain contained a map of the body it revolutionised neuroscience. But it’s time for an update

Moheb Costandi

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Astronomy

Seven years later, what can we make of our first confirmed interstellar visitor?

59 minutes

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Physics

Is it possible to design a shape to roll along any fixed path?

4 minutes

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Evolution

Kinship

Science must become attuned to the subtle conversations that pervade all life, from the primordial to the present

David Waltner-Toews

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Biotechnology

The two women behind a world-changing scientific discovery

14 minutes

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History of technology

Indexing the information age

Over a weekend in 1995, a small group gathered in Ohio to unleash the power of the internet by making it navigable

Monica Westin

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Animals and humans

Ant geopolitics

Over the past four centuries quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own

John Whitfield

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Computing and artificial intelligence

Frontier AI ethics

Generative agents will change our society in weird, wonderful and worrying ways. Can philosophy help us get a grip on them?

Seth Lazar

Close-up of an orange Mercedes car with the focus on the front tyre, which is inscribed with ‘In Crypto We Trust’
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Economics

The cruelty of crypto

Selling itself as the new American dream, crypto exposes the vulnerable to fraud and scams, and loads risk onto the poor

Rachel O’Dwyer

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Medicine

Why surgery and barbering were one occupation in the Middle Ages

6 minutes

A measure for depth of water stands upright in a dried up landscape that was formerly a lake
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Information and communication

Beware climate populism

The most ardent deniers of anthropogenic climate change today will become the climate conspiracy theorists of tomorrow

Ákos Szegőfi

A double-exposure image of a dancer on stage against a black backdrop, his body is lit and partly shot in motion blur
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essay

Genetics

Artists of our own lives

The genome is the starting point for a performance we enact over a lifetime, not a blueprint we’ve got to follow

Richard O Prum

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Space exploration

Mind-bending speed is the only way to reach the stars – here are three ways to do it

5 minutes

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Biography and memoir

As her world unravels, Pilar wonders at the ‘sacred geometry’ that gives it structure

20 minutes

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Meaning and the good life

Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave’s letter on the threat of computed creativity

5 minutes

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Physics

Find the building blocks of nature within a single, humble snowflake

4 minutes

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Space exploration

Capturing the cosmos

When self-replicating craft bring life to the far Universe, a religious cult, not science, is likely to be the driving force

Jay Olson

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History of science

The missing conversation

To the detriment of the public, scientists and historians don’t engage with one another. They must begin a new dialogue

Lorraine Daston & Peter Harrison